Development and Application of Individual and National Opportunity to the Experience of Intimate Partner Violence among Married Women in the Global South

• Author: Brittany E. Hayes
• Published date: 01 May 2022
• DOI: 10.1177/00224278211049940
• Date: 01 May 2022
• Subject Matter: Original Research Articles

Development and

Application of

Individual and

National Opportunity

to the Experience of

Intimate Partner

Violence among

Married Women in

the Global South

Brittany E. Hayes

Abstract

Objectives: Building on the ecological model, multicontextual opportunity

theory, and southern criminology, the study developed individual- and

country-level indicators of opportunity to understand the experience of

intimate partner violence (IPV) among married women in the Global

South. Opportunity-related indicators considered the impact of globaliza-

tion and variability across nations categorized as part of the Global

South. Methods: Relying on data from the Demographic and Health

Surveys and open-source country indicators, mixed effects logistic

School of Criminal Justice, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA

Corresponding Author:

Brittany E. Hayes, School of Criminal Justice, University of Cincinnati, P.O. Box 210389,

Cincinnati, OH 45209, USA.

Email: hayestbe@ucmail.uc.edu

Original Research Article

Journal of Research in Crime and

Delinquency

2022, Vol. 59(3) 327–364

© The Author(s) 2021

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/00224278211049940

journals.sagepub.com/home/jrc

regression examined opportunity-related indicators on a sample of married

women (N=239,554) from the Global South (N=41). Results:

Exposure to motivated offenders was associated with higher odds of IPV.

Individual-level vulnerability was associated with higher odds of IPV.

Isolation and interviews that were interrupted, indicators of guardianship,

were associated with higher odds of IPV while the number of people in

the household was associated with lower odds. More Parliamentary seats

held by women was associated with higher odds of IPV. Nine cross-level

interactions were signif‌icant. Conclusions: National-level factors moder-

ated the inf‌luence of individual-level opportunity, reinforcing the Global

South is not monolithic. The traveling of IPV programing from the Global

North to the Global South is likely ineffective. Programs must consider

how context shapes individual experiences.

Keywords

Global South, intimate partner violence, multilevel, opportunity theory,

micro-macro

Introduction

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a public health crisis (Palermo et al. 2014).

The World Health Organization (WHO 2012) def‌ines IPV as acts of phys-

ical, sexual, and/or emotional abuse that are perpetrated by current or

former intimate partners. Global estimates indicate that nearly 30 percent

of women have experienced some form of physical and/or sexual violence

by an intimate partner during their lifetime (WHO 2016). When considering

the Global South specif‌ically, a meta-analysis revealed IPV prevalence

estimates range from 16 percent to 19 percent in Eastern Asia and Central

America to 66 percent in sub-Saharan Africa (Devries et al. 2013). This

suggests the risk of experiencing IPV is not equally distributed across the

globe and that, quite possibly, the national context shapes the risk of

experiencing IPV.

Extant scholarship has demonstrated that individual-level opportunity is

associated with risk of IPV in the Global North (Gover 2004; Hayes 2018;

Outlaw 2015) but has also found socio-structural opportunity independently

affects gender-based violence (Stein 2014; Tillyer, Wilcox, and Gialopsos

2010). Southern criminology, which calls for inclusivity of experiences

and perspectives outside the Global North, levels power imbalances in the

328 Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 59(3)

production of knowledge (Carrington, Hogg, and Sozzo 2016). As such,

there is a need to challenge assumptions and reimagine core concepts in con-

sideration of historical, cultural, social, and political factors that shape the

Global South (Barberet and Carrington 2018). What remains theoretically

underdeveloped is how living in the Global South conditions opportunity

structures associated with IPV. Indeed, opportunity likely functions differ-

ently for IPV than it does for other forms of gender-based violence, given

the intrinsic nature of the victim-offender relationship. Furthermore, the

Global South has been informed by a “history of colonialism, neo-

imperialism, and differential economic and social change through which

large inequalities in living standards, life expectancy, and access to resour-

ces are maintained”(Dados and Connell 2012:13). The broader context of

the Global South, informed by globalization (Fulu and Miedema 2015),

shapes not only pertinent opportunity factors but may also moderate

individual-level associations between those factors and IPV across nations

categorized as part of the Global South. The current study, anchored in

the Global South, engages in theory development of opportunity for IPV

among married women at the individual- and national-levels while account-

ing for the variability across and within nations classif‌ied as part of the

Global South.

Relying on data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS)

(Individual N=238,554; primary sampling unit [PSU] N=23,333; Country

N=41), the current study develops both individua l and national theoretical

indicators of opportunity as they relate to IPV among married women in the

Global South. Further, the current study examines if the national context mod-

erates individual-level direct effects on the odds of experiencing IPV. This is a

critical step in moving the theoretical understanding of IPV from a southern

criminological orientation forward. Historically, the Global South has been

treated as monolithic. The current study advances our insight into IPV and

opportunity by simultaneously capturing patterns around opportunity and

IPV. Yet, the study also reinforces the importance of locality through cross-

level interactions and the inclusion of the local context as a mid-range level.

Analyses shed insight on the importance of national context and how it may

shape individual factors when designing and implementingprograms. This rein-

forces the need to develop innovative context-specif‌icprograms.

The Global South

The Global South

1

broadly encompasses Latin America, Asia, Africa, and

Oceania (Dados and Connell 2012). Collectively, it refers to regions outside

Hayes 329